Concern for individuals confined within magnetic resonance imaging devices for periods of about one hour has motivated several inventors to provide entertainment means to the patient during the confinement to ease the patient's anxiety and to make the time within the device seem to be relatively brief.
An apparently obvious solution to the problem would be simply to insert a television set, a radio, or other means for entertaining the patient, into a tube-like compartment occupied by the patient so that the patient may be entertained during the imaging process. That solution cannot work, however, because the magnetic flux density within the tube distorts video and audio signals and the source of video and audio signals also adversely affects the imaging apparatus, i.e., the T.V. set or radio and the imaging apparatus will interact and destroy the effectiveness of both.
One inventor, recognizing this limitation, positions a television set remote from the imaging device and extends optical fibers from the remote television set to a position within the imaging apparatus so that the patient is entertained. The optical fibers must be built into the imaging machine as original equipment, because it is believed that any attempt to retrofit such a system into an existing imaging device would be cost prohibitive. It is unknown whether such device actually works and if it does, how well it works. This system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,901,141 to Costello.
The inventor of the optical fiber system points out that others have invented spectacles that enable the patient to view a fixed scene such as a still life that is positioned external to the tube, but that such systems have not been commercially successful because the prolonged viewing of a still life scene does not adequately entertain the patient for an extended period of time. Moreover, the problem cannot be solved by substituting a T.V. set for the fixed scene because the operation of the television set positioned within viewing range of the imaging apparatus will be disrupted by the magnetic flux of the imaging apparatus and vice versa.
Still another system for entertaining the patient includes a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) video display system mounted within the tube where the patient can view it directly. However, LCD screens are relatively small and the patient remains incandescently aware of his or her confinement within the tube.
The prior art, considered as a whole in accordance with the requirements of law, neither teaches nor suggests how the limitations of the art could be overcome.